DevHub.com- Free Website Builder and Publishing Platform

April 14th, 2009

devhub-logo1Currently in limited Beta, DevHub.com is one of the new domain development companies which have been founded to help domain owners in developing their domains into websites.

Based in Seattle, DevHub is owned and operated by the EVO Media Group (evomediagroup.com), the same people who managed the EvoLanding.com domain parking service.

DevHub / EvoMediaGroup Team

  • CEO / Co-founder: Geoffrey Allen Bautista Nuval
  • CTO / Co-founder: Daniel Lee Rust
  • SVP Sales & Strategic Marketing / Co-founder: Mark A. Michael
  • VP of Engineering: Alan Steele
  • Executive Chairman: Jeff Schrock

Site Info

From their About Us, it states that “DevHub is the web hosted publishing platform and content editor created by EVO Media Group….. DevHub’s technology reduces the complexity of publishing to the web, enabling the creation of useful, engaging and user-focused niche websites.”

DevHub currently has 4 primary features:

  1. Hosting
  2. Site creation & Publishing
  3. Integrated Tools
  4. Reporting

From its website, DevHub claims to “make useful websites that make you money” by using their platform to:

  • Build unique sites without any programming skills
  • Monetize with exclusive products, listings, ads
  • Analyze traffic and revenues with detailed reports
  • Grow your own Online Media Network

Comments

DevHub appears to offer a total solution for developing, hosting and managing your domain and website.

There is an easy to use drag and drop site editor which allows users to customize the site’s background, logo, style and more. On top of normal web publishing tools, DevHub’s platform also allows users to integrate content from partnering sites to enhance the developed domains.

Although their service has evolved from EvoLanding which is targeted at domainers, there is no mention about domain owners or domainers on their list of ‘Who is Using DevHub’ (on their homepage) which is surprising. Instead it lists Bloggers, Internet Entrepreneurs and Affiliate Marketers as the users of DevHub.

Signing up is free which allows users to enter up to 10 domains into their DevHub account.

Company Info

  • Phone: 206-441-4399
  • Email: info (at) evolanding.com
  • Address: 2101 4th Ave., Suite 1050, Seattle, WA 98121
  • Media inquiries: Mark Michael at michaelm (at) evolanding.com

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AEIOU Mini Website (Minisite) Development

April 8th, 2009

aeiou-logoCo-founded by Rick Latona, one of the most prominent domainers, AEIOU is one of the first companies to specialize in offering domain development services to domain name owners.

In contrast to development solutions which offer a free publishing platform to develop domains, AEIOU actually develops the domain’s website for customers for a fee.

AEIOU is basically a website design company which is targeted at domainers with quality keyword domains which may be developed into a website in order to gain high search engine rankings and more traffic. In its website, it is clearly stated that “We develop domain names” and that AEIOU provides “Domain Development by Domainers”.

Products

For a few hundred bucks or less, this domain development company will create a unique website and logo for clients together with custom written articles to complement the domain name. There are presently 2 products offered by AEIOU:

(1) The 1 Pager- a single custom designed landing page with unique content and targeted advertising

What You Get

  1. 1 Pager Design & Optimization
  2. 100% Unique Content
  3. Search Marketing Campaign

Pricing

  • 1+ sites, $135
  • 3+ sites, $125
  • 10+ sites, $105
  • 20+ sites, $90

(2) The Rapid Mini Site- a custom designed website with 5 pages of unique content and targeted advertising

What you get

  1. Website Design & Optimization
  2. 5 Pages of Unique Content
  3. Search Engine Marketing Campaign
  4. Hosting Included

Pricing

  • 1+ sites, $250 each
  • 3+ sites, $225 each
  • 10+ sites, $205 each
  • 25+ sites, $175 each

Services

In addition to the 2 domain development products, AEIOU also offers 4 related services:

  • Content Writing: Custom written articles at US$0.05 per word or below.
  • Search Engine Optimization: Keyword research, Basic layout optimization, Keyword optimization
  • Link Building: US$125 per day or less which includes Social Bookmarking, Article Marketing, Blog Commenting, Forum Posting, Directory Posting
  • Website Development: Custom development of sites larger than the 5 page Rapid Minisite.

Comments

The interesting feature from AEIOU’s packages is that they provide a Search Engine Marketing Campaign as well to assist client domains and websites in gaining search engine traffic. Depending on what is actually offered here, this may be a key differentiator for this company.

Regardless of their site design qualities, if they are able to produce meaningful results from their Search Marketing activities for customer sites, then the cost will certainly be worth it.

Effective Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will make a significant impact on the success of any site. AEIOU appreciates this fact and includes a SEM campaign as part of its product packages but it is not clear what is provided exactly. If we refer to their ‘Services’ section, one day of link building will already cost US$125, so it’s unlikely that the $135 1-Pager or the $250 Raid Mini site will have a full day of link building priced in.

The best way of assessing the effectiveness of the sites they build, will be to take a look at some of their portfolio and analyze their respective search engine rankings. Alternatively, just jump in and try a few domains with them and let the results speak for themselves.

Company Info

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Domain Development and Web Design Using Free Websites

March 28th, 2009

The domain name industry is buzzing with the phrase ‘domain development‘ as frantic domain name owners rush to develop their premium domains into useful websites.

Domain Parking

In the domain name aftermarket, professional domain name investors would buy top grade domain names, predominantly in the dot com (.com) extention and place a simple one page website on the domain which is full of related advertisting links.

When a user comes to the domain name, they will see the single page of ads and once they click on one of the paid advertisements, the domain owner will receive advertising revenue. This process is known as domain parking.

Parking Limitations

Although domain parking is a cheap and easy way to monetize a domain name which generates traffic, there are an inceasing number of reasons why domain owners are scrambling to develop their domain names into websites as an alternative to parking.

  • Internet Advertisers can now opt out of having their ads shown on domain parking pages
  • Domain parking advertising rates are falling due to advertiser opt-outs and a general slowdown in internet ad rates
  • Domain parking traffic is decreasing as search engines and internet browsers introduce features that lower direct navigation traffic
  • Domain parking does not generate additional search traffic from getting more pages indexed in the search engines

The Need for Domain Development

With these developments, professional domain name owners (also known as domainers) are exploring the range of products and services available for web development.

There are many services offering custom website design and packaged mini sites which cost a couple of hundred dollars, but a large majority of domainers will be searching for solutions to build free websites on their domains.

Although custom development may have a lot of advantages, for domainers who own thousands of domains, it may not be financially feasible if you consider that to develop 1,000 domains at a cost of US$200, would require an investment of US$200,000 to build sites on all 1,000 domains.

Free Websites

The choices for using free online services and publishing platforms to build websites has improved a lot over the last few years.

Before paying for custom developed sites, domainers with a large domain portfolio may want to consider the available solutions for free websites.

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Free Domain Names- Don’t be Suckered!

March 26th, 2009

It’s amazing how often people end up choosing a service provider because of some free promotion such as ‘free domain names’. Eagerness to grab this freebie may lead to a lot of other problems down the road, so be careful before jumping on free domain promotions.

Free Domain Name Offers

The majority of the companies who offer free domain names are normally web hosting companies who bundle a free domain name together with their paid web hosting solutions. While this is a reasonable package, it’s worth noting that it’s always best to manage your own domain names with a reputable registrar.

Domain names are one of the most important assets in your website and you must be in control of it. Many people have spent lots of time and money to build their site and gain search engine rankings, only to have it disappear because they forgot to renew their domain.

It is the renewal cost of the domain that you want to watch out for when taking a more detailed look at the free domain name offers. As you can see in Microsoft’s free domain names promo, the renewal cost after the first year is US$5 higher than most other domain registrars. Five bucks may not sound like much but if you consider that the renewal price is about $10, an extra $5 is huge in percentage terms.

Heavily Discounted Domains

Similar to free domain names, are promotions which push heavily discounted domains and once again, there’s a catch. In most cases, the really cheap domain registration is attached with a condition that the name must be purchased and renewed for at least a year where the cost of domain name renewal in the second year is much higher than industry standards.

If you simply can’t resist these free deals, one simple tip is to go with reputable domain name registrars when choosing free domain offers. This is because they will have the complete infrastructure for you to host, manage and transfer your domains if you are a domain name trader.

When Yahoo offered very cheap domain name registration rates last year, many domainers rushed to register domains there only to find out later that it was a nightmare trying to transfer the domain away from Yahoo to another registrar. Some domain sellers even found it easier to give their whole Yahoo account to the buyer!

Domain Name Discount Codes & Coupons

Instead of relying on the freebies, one good way to save money when registering domain names is to use the available discount codes and coupons from domain registrars.

You can often find savings of up to 35% or more by using discount coupons to buy domains from Godaddy and a range of other specialist domain name companies.

Find out more about the importance of domain names.

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Free Web Site Hosting & Tools from Microsoft.com

March 25th, 2009

Microsoft has recently announced a new promotion offering customers free web hosting and web development tools as long as they use the Microsoft web platform.

Nothing New

While this may sound appealing to some, its nothing really new as almost every other web hosting company has also been offering free hosting offers which are ineveitably tied to some other form of conditions. In fact, if you go to Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business website, you’ll see that they also offer you a free domain name.

Wow, a free website, free domain and free web hosting, on top of that, you get the Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 (express Edition) and the Microsoft Expression Web for free. Although it’s really much of the same thing again, this move has had effects on the web hosting industry as many of the small free web hosting providers are trying to get out of the game.

What’s in the Offer?

If you’re considering the option of creating your website with these free services from Microsoft, here are a few points which you may want to bear in mind:

  • Free Web Hosting- you only get 500MB free! After that, it’s US$4.95/mth for 1GB up to $14.95/mth for 5GB. If you do your research, you’ll find that the free space is small and the subsequent charges are not the cheapest in the market.
  • Free Domain Name- it’s only free for the first year and after that it’s US$14.95 per year! On top of being over $5 more expensive than many other domain name registrars, you may want to be careful with their backend system regarding transfers and any other conditions, especially if you are a domainer. A lot of people found out the hard way when they tried to grab free or heavily discounted domain names at Yahoo last year.
  • Premium Email- now this is the real shocker, it costs US$19.95 per year for you to use an email account with this free domain name, without advertisements in it.

In summary, it’s nothing new for the web development community but it may be an attractive choice for small businesses and cash strapped internet entrepreneurs during this economic recession who will be sucked in by the free, free, free.

Available Options

Before signing up with any free website provider, take a look at some of the available options for free websites and free web hosting.

Source

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